The newly declassified memoclaims Mr Steele was funded by Democrats, was motivated by his animosity to Mr Trump and was "passionate about him not being president".

Some of the central facts are in dispute - most notably the memo's claim that the dossier was "essential" to the FISA application - but for now we're probably in about the same spot we were before, with 43 percent of the country believing the Russian Federation investigation is a witch hunt, and a majority believing its important. There was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). Responding on Twitter to the memo for the first time since its release Friday, Mr. Trump said "their was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction", repeating his line that the memo and its surrounding circumstances are an "American disgrace!".

The memo acknowledges that the FBI counterintelligence investigation began in July 2016, 3 months before the request for electronic surveillance on Page, as a result of the activities of another Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos.

Two White House officials on Friday said Trump was not considering firing Rosenstein, although Trump declined to express confidence in the Justice Department's second-in-command who had objected to the memo's release.

Rather than reveal pivotal new information about the compromised nature of the FBI, Trump's tweet suggests that the memo's release was merely a pretext to sow doubts about the validity of Mueller's Russian Federation probe.

They said the document - drafted by Devin Nunes, a Trump transition official, US representative and the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee chairman - has glaring holes. Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee's top Democrat, said the GOP document "mischaracterizes highly sensitive classified information" and its release "will do long-term damage to the intelligence community and our law enforcement agencies". "I think he is an idiot and forgot who I am".

The so-called "Steele dossier" has been the source of furious partisan bickering, and put the president at odds with his own law enforcement apparatus.

"The memorandum raises serious concerns about the integrity of decisions made at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use the government's most intrusive surveillance tools against American citizens", White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. "And only in that sense is it fair to say, well, if you take out any piece of it then does that mean that the application would not be complete?" That disclosure would hurt national security and could interfere with the ongoing special counsel investigation into Russian collusion and the election, the FBI has claimed.

Maggie Haberman, White House correspondent for the New York Times and a CNN political analyst, shared a similar thought.

Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of SC similarly said Friday in a tweet, "As I have said repeatedly, I also remain 100 percent confident in Special Counsel Robert Mueller". A Democrat on the intelligence committee, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), said the memo "seriously mischaracterizes the testimony of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and the FISA application".

According to the memo, the application also included "Steele's past record of credible reporting on other unrelated matters".

Comey called the memo "dishonest and misleading" and not worth the damage it's done to public trust in US intelligence agencies.